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Aussie Creationist Superstar

"Aussie Creationist Superstar” was the label used by sceptical Center For Inquiry guru forJohn Mackay following Johns debate at Uni BC January 25 against Prof Dan Ryder. John Mackay and his case for creation were however quickly dismissed as nothing better than a Gish Gallop, while the guru then criticised evolutionist Ryder for relying on technique rather than data. But then he couldn’t (or wouldn’t say) who lost the debate, which coming from a CFI blogger is a real compliment. This was qualified by predicting Ryder would mop John Mackay up in the online debate: “Be it resolved that the genetic and fossil evidence supports the evolution model and refutes the biblical creation model" starting mid-February on;

The crowd was impressive. By 6:45 the Arts and Science amphitheatre was packed and by 6:55 the overflow room holding another 150 seats was overflowing. By 7:00 pm we were hoping the fire warden would not come anywhere near us as folks took up positions along the walls in both venues. .

The topic: "Be it resolved that the genetic and fossil evidence supports the evolution model and refutes the biblical creation model".

The prof of philosophy, Dr. Dan Ryder, defended evolution by explaining that for tonight he believed god existed and that John Mackay would be the better debater, but since the majority of scientists believed in evolution including all the ones who believed in G/god, then that is all you really need to know – so the creation side can’t be trusted no matter how good they sound. His key point was that this portion of the debate was just the introduction, and as far as he was concerned his real arguments would come to light in the follow up online debate. Sadly this prearranged online follow up became my opponent’s chief excuse when he didn’t have data or couldn’t answer my questions – he brushed aside multiple times by stating “He planned to deal with that in the online debate” – which as one woman shared at the end – “If he used that excuse one more time, I was ready to rip his tongue out!”

His majority of scientists believing in evolution claim was easy to deal with since science is not a democracy and truth has never been discovered by % acceptance. But it is also necessary to point out that the real dilemma is that present day science is controlled by the philosophy of atheism and agnosticism - truth is no longer the issue - enforced consensus is!

It took until near the end of the debate for him to admit he really was an atheist. We believe that his invention of a god for that evening was purely to avoid the issue of where life came from as he stated several times he was just discussing common descent and that abiotic origin was not evolution. His key card in this issue was to refer to a prof at Canada’s Trinity Western University who is a theistic evolutionist and a “prominent evangelical Christian” so if he can use god to boot along evolution we all can.

Since this Trinity professor claimed to have once been a young earth creationist that was mooted as a winning point so Ryder recommended we all go to the profs website to get more convinced. . So I made the unpopular reply that the scriptures reveal the devil used to be a young earth creationist too but I can’t recommend any of his webs.

The atheist club was there in force. They antagonistically kicked off the question time and thereafter most questions were addressed to me and had little to do with anything I had stated in my defence.

Most of my opponent’s attacks began and ended as ad hominem attacks on creationists especially yours truly and the prof never really got round to discussing much evidence to support evolution. He conceded the fossil record was spotty but that was irrelevant. All you needed was to observe the similarities in creatures. Then make evolutionary family trees which have to be the most powerful and convincing evidence for evolution.

His most successful side tracking strategy was to attack our use of scriptures against homosexuality which antagonized the pro-homosexual lobby in the audience and they used up quite a bit of question time on this issue. They were unhappy when I advised them that natural selection eliminates homosexuals and unless all the authors they were quoting happened to be the Creator of sex, then what they thought about homosexuality was irrelevant compared to the real God’s stand on the issue. But it did give us opportunities to really share the Christ as Creator and Redeemer with many students and profs etc who would never enter a church.

I guess the saddest comment came from one person who stated’ “I have been to quite a few of these debates on creation but this is the first time I have heard anyone mention Jesus”.

Praise God for the opportunity and pray for the follow up debate – emails have been firing like crazy all over campus and on local radio and there have been heaps of great discussions with students.